Professor Yu-Ling Cheng and her team have been awarded $400,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with which they are to design a self-contained eco-friendly toilet that can run off the grid — no electricity, no running water, no sewage system, the article stated.

According to the article, the grant was announced by the philanthropic Gates foundation at AfricaSan.

"Toilets are a big issue for human health — it''s a humanitarian issue,’" said Cheng, who is also the director of U of T''s Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN), which promotes research and education activities related to engineering in a global environment.

"The lack of clean drinking water in the world is important, but the lack of a way to safely deal with human waste is even more pressing," Cheng added.